Houston Breakthrough, April 1980 - Pages 24 and 25. April 1980. Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries. University of Houston Digital Library. Web. August 2, 2015. http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/feminist/item/4490/show/4483.

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Houston Breakthrough, April 1980 - Pages 24 and 25, April 1980, Houston and Texas Feminist and Lesbian Newsletters, Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries, accessed August 2, 2015, http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/feminist/item/4490/show/4483.

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Pages 24 and 25

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Transcript

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DR. ROCKIT:
TAKING OFF
Rhythm and blues and Rock Romano
-BY KATHLEEN PACKLICK-
Dr. Rockit is a hot new rhythm and blues band
from Houston. They are the main feature at
Anderson Fair every Wednesday night. The
band is the brainchild of Bock Romano, who is
no newcomer to the Houston music scene. The
Smokin' Fitz and The Natives were his babies
too. But to audiences these days, Bock
Romano is Dr. Rockit.
Kathleen Packlick: When did you start playing
music?
Rock Romano: I started playing professionally
when I was getting out of the eighth grade of
parochial school on the north side of Houston.
I met a bunch of guys at St. Thomas High
School. I had already been playing before that
in a group called the Sultans.
KP: What kind of music were you playing then?
RR: We were playing Buddy Holly and Bo
Diddley songs. If you were learning how to play
the guitar, there were certain songs that you
would learn and you'd play with friends and
you'd ultimately end up in a band. We were just
imitating the heroes and the stars and the pioneers of rock and roll. That's what I like about
Doctor Rockit, it's just like the very first band
I had.
In the 10th grade, I met a bunch of cats that
were playing around Bellaire and Lamar High
Schools. They were called the Jim Askin's
Combo. We were playing stuff that was on the
radio-Elvis songs, rock and roll, Chuck Berry,
Wine, Wine, Wine. Jim Askin's Combo was the
ultimate fraternity party band. The pinnacle of
our career was playing at fraternity parties
when we were still in high school.
I dropped out of sight for a couple of years
and went to a seminary at the end of high
school. I found out pretty quick that seminary
life was not for me. When I came back, I got together with the same group of guys. I was in my
first years of college at the University of St.
Thomas where I studied art history. At the
same time, I was in a rock and roll band that
was doing real well in Houston. The same group
of guys essentially were together for 10 years.
We called ourselves the Sixpence and later the
Fun and Games Commission. All throughout
the 60's we recorded. We were nationally famous, actually. We had a number six record in
Los Angeles. We did an album for UNI records
from which a bunch of bubble gum hits were
taken.
After I dropped out of my contract with
UNI records, I started this blues band with
friends of mine called the Cat's Pajamas. The
last incarnation of the band was with Mike
Sunler, Joe Dugan and Carson Graham. We put
together a lot of original music, but mostly
24
with a blues base. We opened a lot of gigs at
Liberty Hall for Bobby Blue Bland.
Since the Cat's Pajamas, I've always tried to
put together a band that was oriented towards
playing to straight ahead rhythm and blues instead of just rockin' out music. The Cat's Pajamas broke up about 1972. That's when I went
out on the road as a private recording engineer
and did a lot of freelance sessions everywhere
from Atlanta to New York to New Orleans. I
call those my years on the road.
When I hit back in Houston, I decided that I
really wanted to come and live here. That was
1975. I had burned a lot of bridges because I
left without telling anybody. Getting back to
Houston was like starting over. I had been out
on the road wild and free and most of my
friends were getting set in their ways. But I
came to find out that I had a lot more friends
than I thought, because that's when I started
the Smokin' Fitz. The Smokin' Fitz was somewhere between Dan Hicks and Steely Dan.
Bonnie Brown, being the spectacular soloist
that she is, moved us into a jazz area. When
Jimmy Bigelow joined us on the tenor sax, we
really turned into a jazz band.
Anyway, I was totally blown away at how
many of my friends that I had known in the
past came to see this band every Sunday night.
I was real pleased. It gave me the confidence
that something else could happen.
KP: Why did the Smokin'Fitz break up?
RR: The Smokin' Fitz broke up because we
were all ready to go into different directions. It
was hard to keep putting on street theatre and
rock and roll jazz for very long.
After six months of not playing in a band,
Herschel Berry and I got together. We were
working together at a factory and we used to
talk every day about putting this band together.
We'd go see Gatemouth Brown, or Herschel
would come back from seeing Link Wray and
Robert Gordon saying, "You gotta come see
this cat. We gotta start a band like this."
So, we put together the Natives. We did
everything from "Does Your Chewing Gum
Lose Its Flavor. ..," to Buddy Holly songs, to
more serious rock and roll. The rock and roll
madness surrounding the band was unbelieve-
able. We started playing at Anderson Fair on
Sunday nights. It got so wild that they were
breaking records on Sunday nights that they
never even set on weekends. The Natives just
took off like crazy.
Then, I got a yearning for a musical change
and it was something that I was trying to make
the Natives into at the beginning. Doctor Bock-
it was the next step. I had a desire to have a